


compass

by codesandhearts



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, i was mad at tlj so i found the force and wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 09:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codesandhearts/pseuds/codesandhearts
Summary: four steps in the right direction.(aka rose, poe, rey and finn try to find their place in the galaxy without sacrificing their characterization)





	1. west

**Author's Note:**

> all the quotes are from sleeping at last's atlas: land because I'm an emo bitch

_Time moves slow_

_When half of your heart has yet to come home._

 

Her parents were pilots. The type of pilots that only found love in the skies, triple barrel rolls, laughing through chaos, and each other. They lived and breathed the Resistance. For them, the fight gave them everything. A sense of purpose, a family, and that meant that there would always be an unpaid debt.

Paige came around and they raised her with the same ethic the Resistance drilled into them: protect who you can. When Rose was born, named after her rosy cheeks and the red-blue-purple (they could never agree on the colour) landscape of the wartorn planet on which she took her first breaths, she was born with an entire galaxy worth of people who would protect her.

So, when she fails pilot training when she is nine because she cannot touch the handles that killed her parents, when she chokes on tears of failure for not being the a Resistance soldier, she is instead given a job in engineering. So, when she feels her blood curling at the thought of Paige saving the world while she sits back and feels the grease on her fingers, General Leia gives a single look that says: _you are enough_.

So, when her first girlfriend tells her they can run away, away from this war, to a soft and quiet planet where the skies don’t explode and there are no such things as dead parents, she says no.

 

Paige tells her that they’re going to do a recon mission at a First Order outpost not too far off before they leave for Crait. They can’t take any chances, they need to know their journey will be safe. It’s been about a week since Starkiller and everyone is on edge, Rose understands that, and the cruiser has been prepped for emergency evacuation for days, but the base on D’Qar has been their home for so long that the usually-nomadic Resistance members have gotten used to the yellow trees and three suns that greet them in the morning.

Rose doesn’t pay it much mind because Paige is good at her job and so is she. Ever since she graduated from engineering at sixteen, she focused on making Resistance ships as safe as she can. She will never worry about Paige’s ship having an accident like their parents’ did. They say goodbye with crescent moons against their palms.

They say hello hours later, when the entire D’Qar base has been safely evacuated onto the cruiser and Paige is out of surgery, a crescent-moon-shape indent in the palm of her hand from holding it too hard when she fell out of the sky.

 

Poe is ready for her. “Rose, I-”

“We had a deal, Dameron.” Poe has about a foot on her but she’s not scared. She’s never been scared of Poe Dameron, she’s seen him sleeping on their couch with his mouth open. “I fix your ships, you protect my sister.”

“She is still alive.”

“You think that excuses you?” Rose asks. “You promised.” It’s the kind of promise little kids tie around their wrists but she’s known Poe for years, promises mean something to this man. Or it did. Now, he turns solid, rougher than she’s ever known him to be and she recognizes that look.

“This is a war, Rose.”

Rose loses some of her anger, realizes there’s too much misplaced anger here. “I know it is. Paige does, too. There will always be a war, especially for us. We were born in this, we’ll die here, too, but we need to look out for each other.” Poe gets like this sometimes. When the war seeps into his veins and he spits out the blood of everyone he’s ever loved and lost. Shara, Muran.

He bows his head, cracks open. “I can’t-” he says. “I can’t keep leading people to their deaths. And I can’t keep thinking it’s okay for me to. Leia, she-”

“I know you look up to her but she’s not you, Poe. You need to find a way to lead that doesn’t tear you apart.”

Poe sniffles. “I was supposed to be comforting you.”

“Knowing that both Paige and Jes will probably kick your ass for it later is somehow enough.” She stands on her tip toes and presses a kiss on his forehead.

Rose hears the tell-tale sign of BB-8’s swivel and urgent beeps. She knows enough binary to know why Poe’s face loses some of his weariness, replaced by a blinding, undeniably Poe, smile.

“Go get him.”

 

The Tico sisters have never been able to do nothing. So, even when Paige is supposed to recovering, she is drawing up battle plans for the squadron and Rose sits by her bedside working on new safety designs for the emergency pods of the cruiser. Jes is there, too, always around to bounce ideas off of while she holds Paige’s hand. Rose is in the middle of looking through the real-time schematics of the cruiser when she sees a blip.

“What is it?” Paige notices.

“Wait.”

It happens again, so quick it looks like the screen is just flickering but that’s the point. Nobody is supposed to notice. And, despite it all, Rose has always thought of herself as a nobody. A smart one.

“They’re tracking us through light speed.”

“What?”

“We’re never gonna make it to Crait. I need to-” _Stop it_. Can she, though? She’s never been able to stop anything bad from happening. Her parents’ death, Paige’s injury. “I need to tell Poe.”

She expects Poe to listen, to understand, to give the job to someone else who could actually get it done without anxiety flooding their nerves. But she doesn’t expect him to directly disobey Leia’s orders of making sure no one leaves the cruiser until they land on Crait; or let Finn, who he just got back, go back to his abusers to save the Resistance again; or to look at Rose and say, “Get it done.”

And she doesn’t expect to answer, “I will,”; to think, _I can_


	2. east

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my gay son deserved better

_Now I bear little resemblance to the king I once was,_

_I bear little resemblance to the king I could become._

 

When he was growing up, heroes were synonymous with a handful of people he was lucky enough to call family. Shara, Kes, Luke, Leia and Han. Back then, war was a kind of glory, a game he could play with his cousins on Yavin 4 with shooting sounds and death that could end when someone called out dinnertime. Even when he started piloting his mother’s A-Wing, he could feel emotions nothing short of exhilaration and joy when the clouds spun around him. Some of that joy, he guessed, never really left.

He still whooped when he flew with his Rapier squad, he still felt the same kind of joy blowing up a First Order outpost as he did when the outpost was just a bunch of cardboard boxes stuck together with tape, and death became a symbol of martyrdom. Never forgotten, always honoured. But Muran died as a body he couldn’t even bury. Han fell into an endless red that seemed to swallow Leia, too. Finn came back to him as a boy with an injury that cut through Poe.

And, when he walks the halls of the Resistance, people still nod to him, respecting him. _That’s the Dameron boy, Leia’s boy, he’ll do great things_. He never quite believes it, until Finn.

Finn, the brightest spot in his life, who he already can’t imagine his life without, who keeps routinely breaking his heart with his undeniable goodness. Poe has spent the week thinking about how their reunion would go. He’d been sitting by Finn’s tank like he’s been for every day since Finn got in it; Finn’s eyes would flutter open and his voice, rough from recovery, would say, “Poe.” But Finn looks like he’s chasing something, and all he says is Rey’s name.

He doesn’t calm down until BB-8 beeps loudly to show him a hologram of Rey by his side before she left. There is so much love in this boy, Poe can’t even begin to think he’s worthy of all of it. When the hologram ends, Finn smiles through tears.

Finn starts breathing again and Poe does, too.

 

Finn is in his room, trying to take stock of what the Resistance is now, or the bare bones of it. He is still smiling but there’s something different about it now.

“Finn?” Poe asks.

Finn is looking out Poe’s window, where there are only stars and darkness. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, Poe.”

“You’re recovering, buddy.”

“And after that?” Finn asks. “I don’t belong here. I just- I just wanted to run away. I think I’m still running.”

And Poe Dameron has always been a quick one to love, he falls, falls, so easily, that it’s hard to wonder why it took so long for him to realize this. He can’t make Finn stay, there is nothing in his body and soul that will tether this boy to this ship and, somehow, that realization comes with an ease. Poe will gladly sacrifice everything he has so Finn can find peace.

Finn reaches out his hand to touch his and Poe’s entire world opens. Poe holds him like a holy thing, reverent of his goodness. He has given the galaxy enough, he doesn’t owe any of them anything else.

Selfishly, Poe wants to say, _take me with you. Wherever you’re going, I want to be with you_. But Poe Dameron belongs here, dying in the line of fire like his mother before him.

There are taps on the door and it opens. Poe is slow to let go of Finn’s hand.

“Rose? What’s wrong?” Poe asks, looking at her flustered state.

Rose’s eyes flit to Finn for a second and freezes right there, her face changing to awestruck. Poe wants to laugh.

“Um, I found something,” she says and hands him a tablet, explains everything as fast as she can. “We need to disable the tracker before we get to Crait, otherwise it’ll be too late.”

“And how do we do that?” Poe asks.

“That’s the tricky thing. The tracker should be on the Star Destroyer, the main ship. We need to get on that and disable the mainframe.”

“I’m coming with,” Finn says.

“Finn, you don’t need to-”

“Who else knows where it is? Who else is better at being a fake soldier for the First Order?”

Poe resigns. “Then we’re gonna need some help.”

 

Lando is perfectly happy to help them to code-break. After all these years, he is still such a good man, willing to stretch his body both ways for his friends and family. He will not be able to be there for them physically because a step into a First Order would mean a fatherless life for his daughters, but he has embedded himself into their ears, their eyes, through new tech he’s developed.

Poe smuggles them into small, slightly dilapidated pod that Rose says no one will know about and feels the gravity tug at his belly button as they swerve off into space, to the Star Destroyer. No one will know they’re gone, except for Paige and Jes, who think this is a horrible idea. But that’s the point. No one will have to know. If Poe Dameron dies today then at least no one else in Resistance will have to.

Rose, Finn and Lando think this is going to be a quick thing because they’re all good at their jobs. Go in, disable the tracker, get out. But Poe knows this is something else.

They get on the ship without much hassle and steal a bunch of guards’ uniforms. Before they go to the mainframe, though, Poe makes sure to hold Finn’s hand. This is where he grew up, he deserves to know that, even if he doesn’t belong in the Resistance, he doesn’t belong here.

Poe stands guard as Finn and Rose try to find the mainframe and Lando speaks to him in his ear. “What are you planning, Poe?”

It was foolish to try to trick a former conman. “Just because we disable the tracker, it’s not gonna stop the First Order. I’m gonna give them another target. Lead them far away from Crait. Buy the Resistance enough time to solidify the base, get enough troops. You get Finn and Rose out of here.”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed, kid.”

“The First Order is catching up to them. Luke and Rey, we don’t know where they are, if they’re coming back,” Poe says. “If there is no hope left, then we make our own.”

“Poe Dameron, running away from a fight?”

“Poe Dameron, protecting the people he loves. Like he always has,” Poe says with a laugh. “Finn and Rose…they’re good kids.”

“So are you.” Lando understands sacrifice, maybe even more than he does. “I’ll protect them.”

 

Poe makes sure their emergency pod is being tracked instead of the cruiser and is ready to find and pilot it to a nearby uninhabited planet. Poe Dameron is ready to die with the memory of Finn’s warmth on his skin, until someone stops him.


	3. south

_ I’m always looking up _

_ 'Til my eyes give up. _

_ That’s how I lost touch _

_ Of who I was _ .

 

Luke is sadder and kinder than Rey ever expected him to be. She feels guilty for trying to bring him back, away from the soft home he has constructed for himself in the ashes of a religion he doesn’t think should exist anymore. As she follows him through mountains and hills, she wonders, is it possible to let him stay here? Is it possible for her to lie to the Resistance and let this weary man rest? 

So she stays. She tells him she wants to learn what he will no longer teach. There is beauty here, away from everything. 

Around the fire one night, after Luke has lost some of that weariness from her presence, she gets the courage to ask, “Why does he hate you?” 

“Because I saw something in him that he didn’t want to see.” Luke stares into the fire and Rey thinks that he’s remembering something. “Goodness.” 

“You thought you could save him. Like you saved Darth Vader.”

“Foolish, in the end. He saw my help as me trying to control him. He lashed out, burning down the school and all of those children. I was responsible for training him. The Jedi were responsible for training him and it all failed. And he was right. The Jedi have no right to control anything.” 

Rey sees the fire reflected in his eyes, slowly fading away as he looks at her. “So you ran, to let the Jedi end with you.” 

“Nothing in this universe belongs to us, Rey. The Force has bigger things to worry about than our tiny squabbles and we don’t control it. I shouldn’t have tried to control Ben, but neither should Snoke have. Ben, like you, like all of us, had a right to make his own decisions with his powers,” Luke says. “There was darkness in him, yes, but there is darkness in all of us. I wasn’t going to cast him out because of it. But what he did with that darkness…”

“Do you think he’ll come back? To Leia?” 

“Not in the way we want him to. He’s held on to the past too tight.”

_ Like me _ , Rey thinks. The truth of it is that she’s been stuck in a single spot for years, waiting for something that will never return. Kylo is, too, thinking that he could one day fill the spot Anakin Skywalker occupied in the universe by becoming him, by becoming a dead man. 

She has felt like a ghost since a single ship flew away from her. She might never know, or remember, who her parents are. But she is done trying to hold on to something that doesn’t matter anymore.

Finn flashes in her mind, so does Poe, Leia, Chewie, Luke. 

There is a voice appearing, that says, “You know what you have to do.” Rey should be scared by it but the pale, faded man standing across from her feels like an old friend. 

She nods at him. 

“You see him, too?” Luke asks. 

She grabs Luke’s lightsaber from her pack and feels Luke and Anakin follow her up the hill, through darkness, until they reach the tree. There was something sacred here but it’s long been gone. 

Rey breathes, turns on the lightsaber and points it to the tree. Anakin guides her hand, until the branches catch fire and they are standing in front of an effigy. 

“Thank you,” Anakin says, before he disappears. Rey doesn’t worry. She will see him again, one day. 

Luke drops to his knees and Rey holds his hands. He takes the lightsaber from her, throws it into the fire and, for the first time in a very long time,  _ laughs _ . 

 

“You could still come with me,” Rey says, a final plea. “Leia would be happy to see you.” 

“She’d slap me the first chance she got,” Luke says with a smile. A night’s rest and the obliteration of a corrupt religion does wonders for a man’s depression, Rey decides. 

“Still.” 

Luke touches her face with his wounded hand and she leans into it, his warmth overpowering the cold metal. “I am happy you found me. You are a marvel, Rey…do you have a last name?”

Rey laughs. “No, never did.” 

He kisses her forehead as a goodbye. “You can have Skywalker, if you want. You’d be the first to end up happy, I’ll bet.” 

She thinks about it, thinks about belonging with Luke, Leia, Han, Anakin, but shakes her head. She needs to belong to herself, first. 

When Rey, Chewie and R2 are safely in the Falcon, she switches on the beacon to bring her home. She tries to find the location and looks at Chewie. 

“Uh, why are they on a Star Destroyer?” 

 

As they fly through hyperspace, Rey finds Finn in her mind. It’s a soft feeling but it is enough to know he is safe. He is in her head, his goodness and love and compassion, and she feels it growing. Wherever he is, he just found joy. She wonders if he can feel her, too. 

She is catapulted out of the Falcon in a pod and walks through the base with relatively few problems because she’s invisible to everyone else. Understanding the Force means that she can now be its friend. 

The beacon leads her to a systems room, where she sees Poe standing guard. He can’t see her so he hides nothing. He wants to run, that much she can tell. 

“Poe,” she says softly. 

He still can’t see her. “Rey?” his eyes search for her. 

“Poe, don’t do it.”

Poe tries to reach out for her and, when he fails, she brushes their hands together so he knows she’s there. “They're not gonna be able to get away if I don’t. I’ll be the bait.” 

“There’s a better plan,” Rey says, desperate now. She has lost enough. “Come with me on the Falcon. I’ll get them out and we’re not leaving without you.” 

“Someone still needs to set that pod to autopilot to throw the tracker off.” 

“I’ll do it,” Rey says. “I’ll sneak in, no one will see me and we’ll all go on the Falcon.”

Poe seems like he’s warming up to the idea but, suddenly,

silence.

The Force moves through her, telling her something’s wrong. 

“Rey.”

She knows that voice. She has had nightmares with that voice. 

Ben Solo stands, a more tortured man than she remembers, and she can feel his red hot rage in the Force. But, there, too, an undeniable soft, blue glow. She turns, sees Poe, BB-8, a girl with her hand around two young children in Stormtrooper uniforms, and Finn. There he is. Without realizing, without really understanding, Finn joins her in the Force and she’s never felt stronger. 


	4. north

_ Smaller than dust on this map _

_ Lies the greatest thing we have: _

_ The dirt in which our roots may grow _

_ And the right to call it home. _

 

He dreams of a tree. It is big and sacred, capable of swallowing him whole, but it’s empty. There are small whispers he can’t really understand, in an ancient language he feels like he knows. He dreams of snow, of a red strike along his back. He dreams of Rey. He wakes up screaming her name because it’s the only name that feels like home. 

 

The tree never leaves him, not really. He knows, somehow, that it doesn’t exist anymore, that it hasn’t in a very long time but he thinks about trees, about growing something that will last that long. Flowers and green grass in a landscape that used to be barren and wasted. There are no flowers here, only dark, empty space. The same view he’s had for all the years he worked on Starkiller base. It is still beautiful, he still finds hope in the small, twinkling lights that greet him outside of Poe’s window, but he yearns for roots. Someplace, something, that he can trace back to in years to come. Something to pass down, to be proud of. He wants to find a place like that and take Poe and Rey there. 

Because, sooner or later, he’ll run out of use in the Resistance. Former stormtrooper isn’t exactly something he can check on a form and Poe’s affection for him can only go for so long. 

When he volunteers for the mission to disable the tracker, it’s because it’s one of the last things he can do before anyone here can figure out he’s not needed. 

Poe is going over the plan with Lando and Rose is prepping the pod for their mission. 

Rose is a mystery to him. Soft in some places, when she tells him he’s a hero, but rough in others, when her mouth downturns and her hands look like they could be weapons. He wonders how much anger could hide in such a small frame and knows he will never really find out. 

“Hey, uh, Rose?” Finn says and she lets out an ‘mm’ in a response. “I’m sorry. About your sister. Poe told me about her.” 

Rose stops, then, some of that angry concentration evaporating. She is soft about her sister, at least. Finn doesn’t know that feeling, there were no siblings in the First Order, only friends that might not make it through the night. And Rey isn’t a sister, not in the way Paige is to Rose; Poe definitely isn’t a brother. Whatever they are to him, they’re a different kind of love Finn doesn’t have the name for yet. 

“She’s gonna be fine. Jes is taking care of her,” Rose says. She looks up to Finn now. “You know, she really admires you. From the stories Poe’s told us.” 

Finn feels heat travel up to his cheeks. “Poe talks about me?” 

“Too much.” Rose lets out a small laugh. “She thinks you’re a real Resistance hero.”

“Not a part of the Resistance. Not even sure if the hero thing counts,” Finn says. 

“Oh,” Rose says, slightly disappointed. Finn can somehow tell that she was looking forward to having him around and maybe he was, too. There’s a light in Rose that Finn just wants to soak up. “Well, you don’t need to be a part of us. It’s a go-big-or-go-home thing, y’know? You need to have a real reason for it. And no one can really make you stay. Not even him.” 

Finn feels Poe at his back, knows, truly knows, that if he decides to leave the Resistance, there will be a piece of his heart that will never grow back. 

“What’s your reason?” Finn asks. 

Rose shows him a ring, swiping at it so it shows the Resistance symbol underneath. “Hope.” 

“C’mon,” she says. “Time to keep it alive.” 

 

It’s not like he was expecting to get in and out of the Star Destroyer without a single incident but he was expecting this. Poe is standing outside on guard and there are two Stormtroopers separating Finn and Rose from the mainframe that would disable the tracker. Finn knows this was a likely outcome but he notices something else: their blasters are thrown to the floor. 

“FN-2187,” one of them says. And Finn nods.

Rose raises her blaster and he stops her. “No.”

“Finn?”

“Just wait.” 

He steps forward, takes off the First Order hat he has on his head and kneels. He just wishes he isn’t wrong. The two Stormtroopers lift their hands simultaneously to their masks and take them off. They’re  _ kids _ . A more masculine face, slightly tanned with dark hair, and a feminine one with freckles dotting her dark skin. Finn feels like crying. 

“Finn,” Rose says. She understands now. She steps forward, showing them her ring. 

“You’re with the Resistance?” the boy asks. 

Finn shares a look with Rose and she’s sympathetic. “Yeah,” he answers, truthfully. “Yeah, I am. And I’m gonna make sure you’re safe, okay? But we gotta-”

“The tracker,” the girl says. “We can help.” 

 

It’s barely five minutes but Finn feels something. There’s someone coming. 

“Quick,” he tells Rose and the kids. 

“You think this is easy?” Rose asks. 

“I think he’s coming,” Finn says. “Kylo Ren.”

Where the kids and Rose find fear, Finn finds determination. This is someone who hurt him, who tried to hurt Rey, who killed Han Solo. 

“There’s not gonna be time to go down and set the pod on autopilot,” Finn says. “Not if we wanna get away.” 

“We don’t need to. Lando, correct me if I’m wrong but those emergency pods can be connected through a systems override, right? Even if it hasn’t been used, they should still share the same system.” Finn can see the gears in Rose turning. 

Finn can hear Lando’s smile through the static. “I don’t think you need me to tell you you’re right, miss.” 

“We can do it from here. Override it by connecting through their electromagnetic signature. You focus on getting us a ride out of here.” 

“There’s a reserve shuttle bay not too far away,” the girl supplies. 

Finn ruffles her hair. “That’s my girl,” he says. “Well, I assume, you don’t need to be a girl, you-”

“Finn,” Rose is sharp. “Tell your man to get ready. You two, stay here. I need help with something else.” 

Finn goes outside, nerves singing out of joy, exhilaration and just wanting to tell Poe  _ everything _ . He knows what to do now. He knows where he can belong. 

But Poe doesn’t see him, his eyes are glazed, looking forward. Finn can only hold his hand and look the same way. 

Rey. 

And, in front of her, Kylo Ren. 

Rose surfaces next to him, one hand tapping away at the pad, the other protectively gripping on the young Stormtrooper’s shoulder. 

“You’re not going to call me out?” Kylo asks, sneering. “Yell out murderer?” 

Rey stands her ground, barely flustered. She turns to them, eyes locked to Finn, and he feels something. He can’t really describe it but he remembers that tree. The branches seem to wrap around him, pushing his feet forward, towards Rey, towards Kylo. 

“You would sacrifice yourself for these people? This traitor?” Kylo asks Rey. 

Rey doesn’t answer. Finn doesn’t know if she can’t find the words or it’s deliberate but Rose, somehow, fills the silence. 

“You touch any of us, I blow your ship up,” she says, lifting her pad that shows a big red button. “It really wasn’t a good idea to use combustible fuel tanks, man, someone might get the idea to light it up.” 

Poe stares at her, in awe, and Rose just shrugs. She taps on her ear piece. “Never put a conman together with a mechanic.” 

Finn looks at Rey, sees that her hand is at her side, to her communicator. And, instantly, when her eyes meet his, he understands. 

“Now!” 

Both of them reach out their hands, pulling at Kylo’s lightsaber. Kylo pulls back and there’s an entire galaxy’s worth of gravity between them, pushing, pulling, and it should hurt. It should hurt every part of his body, flare up pain up his spine, blister the skin around his fingers, but there is something else guiding him. 

Kylo pulls his face, every part of him trying to hold on to the last physical remnant of his control. And it,

shatters.

The entire force of a kyber crystal inside that saber blasts at them, throwing all of them back, but Rey is quick to act. She grabs at him, at Poe and Rose, at the kids and pulls them away from Kylo. They run, through a labyrinth of steel and metal that once trapped him, until they reach the Falcon and Chewie’s welcoming roar. 

“Go, go go!” Poe is yelling. 

“Let me just-” Rose is struggling. “Commander?”

“Yes,” Poe says. 

“Permission to blow something up?” 

“You got it.”

There’s a kickback from the explosion, forcing them to jump through space. Hazily, Finn registers Rose saying that any surviving First Order troops will be tracking an empty pod to another corner of the galaxy. 

He doesn’t look out of the window, to the spectacular explosion happening, to the destruction of everyone who has ever caused him any pain. He looks, instead, to the two kids next to him, silently crying, and Poe, who is kneeling in front of him, kissing his hands. 

Everything he needs in the galaxy is right here. 

 

Crait becomes home. 

To Paige, who has fully recovered and has taken to kissing Jes in public without shame. To two children who no longer need to shoot blasters in their free time but, instead, work with Rose in engineering to track down any First Order defectors. To Poe, his weary leadership to bring new life into the Resistance and soft kisses for Finn in the mornings. To Rey, who works with Luke and Leia to bring about a new kind of balance in the galaxy. To Finn, who spends his morning mapping out every constellation on Poe’s body, his afternoons finding no more fear in weapons that can bring some form of good in the world, his nights connecting with a force that he’s forgotten but has never forgotten him. To nights where the four of them would sit on the white sand, on the red dirt, and stare at the stars. 

In the distance, Ben Solo still lives with a corrupted view of what darkness is. 

And, when he comes, battered, bruised, angry, with a new army on his back, they are ready.


End file.
